I love all things embroidery and noticed there’s a real trend for embroidering on clothes, trainers, bags and hats. How do you transfer an embroidery design on to all these different surfaces? I’ve used vintage tranfers, tried transferring designs using natural light from a window and it’s hard. I also recently received a light box which is great for light fabrics, but totally doesn’t work on darker fabrics. So when I came across embroidery transfers it was a real game changer.

How to use stick on embroidery transfers

If you haven’t come across embroidery transfers before then let me tell you a bit about them. They are so handy and easy to use. They consist of your chosen design on a pre-printed sticky surface. To use them you simply peel away the backing paper and place the embroidery transfer where you want it. Then use an embroidery hoop to keep your fabric taut whilst you stitch. Once you’ve finished you can wash away the transfer paper, leaving your beautiful stitched surface.

I couldn’t wait to try this for myself so bought a pack of botanical transfers from Mindful Mantra Designs on Etsy. I chose the design I wanted to try first and found a suitable item to stitch it onto, a blank little zipped bag.

I peeled off the backing of the design and stuck it centrally on the zipped bag. I chose two skeins of embroidery thread, placed a hoop over the design I wanted to stitch first, and started stitching.

This was quite a small project so I took it away with me on holiday. It was small enough I could tuck it in my handbag and get it out when I needed it.

I’m pretty good at stitching in the car, whilst my children are at the park, anywhere!

I used satin stitch to fill in the parts and it came together so quickly. Whenever I finished a section, I loved the embroidery hoop to keep the fabric tight.

Once I had finished I removed my embroidery hoop, and washed the pattern away with warm water. It came away easily and I hung it on the line to dry. It was a little tricky to iron but I think the creases will come out as I use the little pouch. What do you think? It was much easier that any other way of transferring a design and I can’t wait to try out more of the stick on embroidery transfers.